Jean Rhys's spell-binding novel Wide Sargasso Sea, inspired by Jane Eyre and winner the Royal Society of Literature Award is beautifully repackaged as part of the Penguin Essentials range.

'There is no looking glass here and I don't know what I am like now... Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?'

If Antoinette Cosway, a spirited Creole heiress, could have foreseen the terrible future that awaited her, she would not have married the young Englishman. Initially drawn to her beauty and sensuality, he becomes increasingly frustrated by his inability to reach into her soul. He forces Antoinette to conform to his rigid Victorian ideals, unaware that in taking away her identity he is destroying a part of himself as well as pushing her towards madness.

Set against the lush backdrop of 1830s Jamaica, Jean Rhys's powerful, haunting masterpiece was inspired by her fascination with the first Mrs Rochester, the mad wife in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.

I just read about this book, alas, I can't for the life of me remember in which book the reference was. However, it prompted me to put in on my wishlist. Two wished granted in a day - you do spoil me, my dear.

It took me a while before I got the Jane Eyre - reference. A quite disturbing book, which jumped about a bit - even so I did like it.

The April book, enjoy!

Thank you Haugtussa, the postman delivered it this morning.

I read it entirely. Very disturbing.
Edit : After reading the reviews on LibraryThing it's very much clear for me now. Apparently there are a lot of footnotes on a different edition which are missing here.


"Wide Sargasso Sea is well-known as the "prequel" to Jane Eyre. Rhys tells the life story of Antoinette Mason, a Creole who becomes the mad woman in Jane Eyre. The story itself is quite short (113 pages). My copy, a Norton Critical Edition, contained considerable supplementary material. Relevant excerpts from Jane Eyre helped refresh my memory and made the necessary connections between the two books."